Night of the Twelfth

by Michael Gilbert

  ‘It’s like a lot of other ideas we’ve been discussing,’ said the Colonel. ‘We can prove them all quickly enough when we locate our man. And I agree that the best way to find the man is to find the car. Let us have details as soon as possible of the men you can put on to the job. We’ll split the area into station sections and co-ordinate the search with the local men. They’re the ones who’ll know the form. I’ll have the Chairman of the Chichester bench standing by in case anyone proves obstructive and we want a search warrant quickly. And I’d like a word with you, Andy.’

  When the other three had gone, he said, ‘I couldn’t help noticing that you didn’t say anything in front of the others about that bit of paper you picked up. You know what I mean.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Anderson.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I thought long and hard about it. It’s not that I doubt their discretion. I needn’t tell you that. But I had two reasons for keeping that one piece of evidence between ourselves for the moment. The first was that there’s nothing the others can do to help us with it. We’re doing all we can about it already.’

  ‘I agree with that,’ said the Colonel. He smiled as though at a private joke which they shared.

  ‘My second reason was this. Once they heard about it, their reaction – maybe a quite unconscious reaction – would be to ease up on this general search. I don’t want that. I want it to be slow and thorough and to cause as much commotion as possible. I want our man to hear it coming. To feel it closing in on him. I want him to lie awake at nights, thinking about it. I want him to be frightened. I want him to sweat.’

  ‘What you mean,’ said the Colonel, looking curiously at Anderson’s face, ‘is that you want him to feel a little of what he dealt out to those three boys.’

  The Scotsman gradually relaxed. The Colonel could see the fire dying down. Anderson said, ‘It’s daft to suppose that you don’t have personal feelings when you’re on a job like this one.’

  8

  ‘I think the Colonel’s right,’ said Sergeant Baker. ‘Those people took a bad knock at the embassy and it’ll take them time to re-organize.’

  ‘We certainly can’t keep the staff up all night and every night,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on them or on the boys.’

  ‘The way I look at it is this,’ said the Sergeant. ‘I don’t think they’d want to kill young Sacher. That couldn’t do them or their so-called cause any good. The object would be to kidnap him. Bring pressure to bear on his father, and through his father on his government.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Fairfax. He hoped that he sounded as matter of fact about it as Sergeant Baker. He had just missed the war, leaving Wellington a month before VE day. He sometimes thought that if he had had some experience of the war it might have made certain things easier to take. He became aware that he had missed something the Sergeant was saying.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Could you say that again.’

  ‘I was saying, if they want to kidnap him, they’ll need a car. And there’s only two ways you can get a car inside these grounds. One’s by the main gate at the head of the drive. The other’s by the side gate, on the Rudgwick Green road. What I think we ought to do is to ask the police to have a standing patrol at the main gate, and put a chain and padlock on the side gate.’

  ‘Suppose they leave the car some way away and come in on foot?’

  ‘Can’t guard against everything,’ said the Sergeant. ‘My guess is they’d try to bring the car as close up as possible. If we’re wrong, we’re wrong, and that’s all there is to it.’

  What an extraordinarily robust and self-reliant man Baker was, thought Mr Fairfax. In some ways he reminded him of his own father.

  ‘How many times have I told you,’ said Mr Bishop. ‘Measure twice, before you cut once. And if in doubt, measure too big, not too small. You can always take half an inch off a piece of wood. You can’t add it on.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Monty Gedge. ‘I suppose it means I’ll have to start again.’

  ‘It means you’ve ruined a nice piece of wood, Gedge. And nice pieces of wood are getting scarcer all the time. I read the other day that a square mile of forest is cut down for every edition of Sunday paper that comes out. Carry on like that, and soon there won’t be any wood left. Then what’ll happen?’

  ‘Everything will be made of plastic,’ said McMurtrie. He was constructing an elaborate affair of wood and metal which looked like a rabbit hutch equipped with all modern conveniences.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Mr Bishop. Plastic. First we had the stone age, then the iron age. We’ll finish up with the plastic age.’

  ‘Plastic’s useful for some things,’ said Joscelyne. ‘Toothbrush handles, for instance.’

  ‘Thermos flasks.’

  ‘Lavatory seats.’

  ‘Plastic lavatory seats aren’t nearly as comfortable as wooden ones,’ said Gedge.

  ‘When my father was in Canada,’ said McMurtrie, ‘he stayed at a hotel in Winnipeg and they had hollow lavatory seats and used to run warm water through them, just imagine.’

  ‘That’s enough about lavatory seats,’ said Mr Bishop. ‘Kindly bear in mind that your parents are paying five pounds a term extra for you to learn carpentry.’

  The carpentry class was a popular one, and most of One-A had got on to it. It not only made a nice relaxed break in the routine, but had the advantage of producing something to show for it by the end of term. Pipe-racks, book rests, knife boxes and picture frames, all useful solutions to the birthday and Christmas present problem.

  Mr Bishop moved softly from job to job, giving out much sound advice and occasional help. ‘If you don’t seal up those joints a bit neater,’ he said, ‘your astronauts are going to be in for trouble in the stratosphere, aren’t they.’ This was to the Warlock twins who were constructing a space-craft. ‘Run some plastic wood in, wait till it’s good and dry and sandpaper it off.’

  He moved round to McMurtrie and stood watching him as he bent over what he was doing, his handsome, half-formed face flushed with effort. Then he said, ‘If you hold a chisel like that you’ll never make a smooth job of it.’ He put one hand gently on the back of McMurtrie’s, gave the chisel a half turn, picked up the mallet with his other hand and awarded the handle of the chisel a smart tap. It slid smoothly forward.

  ‘It’s easy enough when you do it,’ said McMurtrie.

  ‘Everything’s easy if you do it the right way,’ said Mr Bishop.

  ‘That’s a set of photographs I took last sports day,’ said Mr Diplock. ‘I got them with my Pentax using a 55mm lens and a shutter speed of a five hundredth.’

  ‘I think they’re very good indeed,’ said Manifold.

  It was the quiet hour after lunch, and they were alone in the common-room. The photographs were, in fact, excellent. Mr Diplock was not only using a very good camera, but he knew how to use it, and had the additional advantage of knowing his subjects. The close-up, taken with a telescopic lens of Marsham minor’s face as he just managed to scrape over the high-jump bar was a masterpiece of the action photographer’s art.

  ‘You must have been doing this for a long time,’ said Manifold.

  ‘When I decided to take up school mastering,’ said Mr Diplock, ‘it was the time of the depression in the early thirties – you’d be too young to remember much about that – I decided that the greatest danger to be avoided was boredom. Once you have conducted two or three successive generations of boys, from cover to cover, through Kennedy’s Latin Primer and Hall and Knight’s Algebra the job has no more variety than that of the man who fastens the same nuts on to the same bolts on a conveyor belt.’

  ‘A little more variety, surely. Not all boys are the same.’

  ‘Boys are either intelligent or stupid. And can be further subdivided into those that are hardworking and those that are lazy. In combination, that gives you four possible types, and no more. I have diverted from what I was saying. In order to avoid
boredom, you need a hobby. And the hobby must be geared to your means. I started by collecting butterflies. That demanded only a butterfly net and a killing bottle.’

  As he said this, Mr Diplock’s eyes showed a momentary gleam of excitement, and Manifold saw a younger and more active Mr Diplock, creeping through the bushes, a net in one hand, his steel-rimmed glasses flashing.

  ‘That lasted for some years. I then turned to postage stamps and amassed a very large and completely worthless collection. It filled several suitcases. After that came coins. And now I have reached what I think might justly be described as the apotheosis of all hobbies. Photography. There is one simple prerequisite. If you wish to take good photographs you must be prepared to spend a lot of money on a good camera. You need a number of gadgets, of course, and a grasp of certain techniques. But these are less important than imagination – and luck. My best photographs have always been the result of grasping the lucky moment. This one for instance–’

  ‘Good heavens,’ said Manifold.

  It was a photograph of Lucy Fairfax. It was in close-up and it was clear from the set of her lips that she was saying something unpleasant. There was something else about the picture. It had a surface gloss behind which the face seemed to be imprisoned, like a goldfish in a bowl.

  ‘How on earth did you manage to get it?’

  ‘I happened to notice that when she stood in a certain position by the door leading into the garden, her reflection was thrown very clearly on to the dining-room window. In the ordinary way it is almost impossible to take a satisfactory picture of a reflection in plain glass. If there is any light in the room behind the window you get no picture. And if there is too much light in front, the light itself reflects off the glass. An interesting technical problem. It took me a month to get that picture right. Here is another. I took that with a telescopic attachment in the early morning.’

  It was Commander Gaze, halfway round the field on his early morning run. His lips were drawn back from his teeth, and a very small trickle of saliva was running from the corner of his mouth.

  ‘You wouldn’t have imagined that he was enjoying himself, would you,’ said Mr Diplock drily. ‘The most interesting photographs are always those that show animals in their natural state, don’t you think?’

  A thought occurred to Manifold. He said, ‘You haven’t got one of me, I suppose?’

  ‘I took it two minutes ago,’ said Mr Diplock. ‘When you were studying that last photograph. I used a remote control device. The camera is on the shelf over there.’

  Manifold said, ‘Good God!’ and was saved from further comment by the bell for afternoon school.

  ‘Come hither, boy,’ said Latrobe, ‘if ever thou shalt love, in the sweet pangs of it remember me. For such as I am, all true lovers are: unstaid and skittish in all motions else, save in the constant image of the creature that is beloved. How dost thou like this tune? We’ll have someone playing on some sort of musical instrument whilst I’m saying that. You’re meant to be listening to it, but most of your attention is on me.’

  ‘OK.’ said Joscelyne.

  ‘How dost thou like this tune?’

  ‘It gives a very echo to the seat where love is – love is – something or other.’

  ‘Throned.’

  ‘Sorry. Where love is throned.’

  ‘Thou dost speak masterly. My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye hath stay’d upon some favour that it loves. Hath it not, boy?’

  ‘A little, by your favour.’

  ‘What kind of woman is’t?’

  ‘Of your complexion.’

  ‘She is not worth thee, then. What years ’faith?’

  ‘About your years, my lord.’

  ‘Too old, by heaven. Let still the woman take an elder than herself. So wears she to him. So sways she level in her husband’s heart. For, boy, however we do praise ourselves, our fancies are more giddy and unfirm, more longing, wavering, sooner lost and won, than women’s are.’

  ‘I think it well, my lord.’

  ‘Then let thy love be younger than thyself, or thy affection cannot hold the bent. For women are as roses, whose fair flower, being once displayed, doth fall that very hour.’

  ‘And so they are: alas that they are so; to die even when they to perfection grow.’

  ‘You’ll have to see if you can put just a bit more feeling into it. Remember that I’m making love to Olivia, by proxy, but you’re making love to me.’

  ‘They must have felt awful nits,’ said McMurtrie.

  ‘Oh, why?’

  ‘Spouting all that stuff to a boy dressed up as a girl. I mean to say, if you make love on the stage nowadays, you do at least get a girl to do it with, if you see what I mean.’

  ‘I see what you mean,’ said Latrobe, ‘but I don’t agree. When you’re acting, you don’t think of the other people on the stage as themselves. You think of them as the characters they’re playing.’

  ‘And anyway,’ said Joscelyne, ‘when you see them close up, they’re absolutely smothered in make-up. I sometimes wonder how people kiss on the stage without sticking together.’

  ‘I once saw a love scene being shot in a film,’ said Billy Warlock. ‘The girl was yellow. Absolutely bright yellow.’

  ‘Drink it up,’ said Elizabeth.

  ‘It’s such muck,’ said Paine.

  ‘Your parents have paid for this tonic. You’re going to drink it and like it.’

  ‘Last time, it made me feel sick.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  ‘It isn’t nonsense. I jolly nearly was sick.’

  ‘Are you going to do what I tell you, or not?’

  ‘I don’t see why I should.’

  ‘I’m not going to stand here all day holding this spoon. If you don’t drink it, I shall–’

  It suddenly occurred to Elizabeth that she had no idea what she would do. Most of the boys did what she told them, but she had no actual authority. Paine was a lout. She had had trouble with him before, but never outright defiance. Paine recognized the strength of his position, too. He smirked and said, ‘If my parents have paid for the tonic, it belongs to me, doesn’t it? And I can do what I like with it, can’t I?’

  ‘You can drink it, and stop arguing.’

  ‘Mrs Fairfax told Holbrow that all you were here for was to give her a hand. I don’t see why you should boss us about. Annie doesn’t boss us about.’

  Elizabeth flushed scarlet and took a step forward. Paine saw that he had gone too far. He decided on tactical retreat. ‘Oh, all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll drink the beastly stuff, even if it does make me sick.’

  ‘And why should you, if it upsets you?’ said Mrs Fairfax, from the door. It was not clear how much she had heard.

  Elizabeth said, ‘Since you’re here, you can give it to him yourself.’

  She placed the bottle and spoon carefully down on the dispensary table and marched out.

  ‘Paine said what?’

  ‘As far as I could make out, he was quoting Lucy as saying that since I ranked with the kitchen maids, there was no reason why he should do what I told him to.’

  ‘I see,’ said Nigel. ‘I see. Well, I’ve had my eye on that young man. This time he’s definitely gone too far.’

  ‘Don’t make a fuss with Lucy. She’ll only deny she ever said it, and I shall look a perfect fool.’

  ‘I’ve no intention of saying anything to Lucy,’ said Nigel.

  He marched upstairs to the bedroom which Paine shared with three other boys. They were sitting up in bed listening to some story which Paine was telling them, and which they seemed to be finding amusing. When they saw the look on Nigel’s face the chattering ceased abruptly.

  ‘I understand that you’ve been impertinent to Miss Shaw,’ he said.

  Paine said, ‘I didn’t mean anything, sir. Really I didn’t.’

  ‘It’s perfectly clear what you meant. You behaved like an ill-bred gutter snipe, and I’m not going to have it. Do you understand?’
<
br />   ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Get out of bed.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And bend over.’

  Nigel picked up a slipper.

  Paine seemed about to make some protest, but the look on Nigel’s face silenced him. He folded himself obediently over the end of the iron bedstead.

  9

  ‘So Paine sneaked, did he?’ said Nigel.

  ‘He was still crying when I went up last night to say good night. I insisted on him telling me what had happened. You must have hurt him a good deal.’

  ‘I meant to hurt him,’ said Nigel. He was still angry. ‘I don’t suppose, by any chance, he told you what he had done.’

  ‘He said something about some medicine which he hadn’t wanted to take. It didn’t seem to me to be anything very serious.’

  ‘It was nothing to do with the medicine. It was what he said. He told Elizabeth, to her face, that she was only one of the maids, that there was no more reason for him to do what she told him than if she was Annie or cook.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘He certainly did. And he quoted your wife as his authority for saying it. I don’t imagine you’re going to support him, are you?’

  ‘I’m certainly not supporting him. It was a rude and stupid thing to say. Quite apart from being untrue.’

  ‘You realize that Elizabeth can’t continue to work here unless she has your backing. Your full backing.’

  ‘I do realize that,’ said Mr Fairfax. ‘I have always given it to her and I always will give it. But that is not the real point. I made it absolutely clear, when you came here, that no boy was to be beaten, except by me.’

  ‘You made it perfectly clear, Headmaster. And I’ve observed your ruling. This was an exceptional case, and it won’t happen again.’

  ‘I’m glad to have your assurance on that point.’